Fundamentalists dealt setback in India vote

By B. Prasant, in People's Weekly World,2 November, 1996

The the cradle of Indo-Islamic culture, political laboratory
of India's freedom struggle, Uttar Pradesh, with an
electorate of just over 10 billion represents the most
important province of India as far as political primacy is
concerned. Famed for its multilingual, multiethnic,
multidenominational character, it prides itself on its
unique brand of socio-cultural distinctness.

And yet, what Uttar Pradesh has lacked traditionally has
been political stability. In particular, the last decade has
been witness to a frightening rate of attenuation of elected
provincial governments as a fractured electorate managed to
send four chief ministers packing in a span of just under
six-and-a-half years. With political instability has come
non-governance and administrative breakdown, misrule and
instability.

Uttar Pradesh elections mean a mini-general election, a
showcase that would delineate the shape of the things to
come in the national political scenario. This time around,
there were several features to the pre-electoral milieu that
all past elections have lacked: Congress, the major player
in Uttar Pradesh politics, was in a sorry state. It had been
voted out of office in Delhi and had since been seen to
struggle against a rapid fracturing of its district party
units with charges of corruption being leveled against its
top-level leadership, including the conviction of former
prime minister Rao in a cheating case.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) makes no secret of its
sordid Hindu fundamentalist stance. The electoral debacle
that had followed the demolition of the Babri Masjid in
Ayuodhya in 1991 haunted it. The Bahujan Samaj Party, which
prides itself on its distinct caste bias, was not sure of
its electoral chances, what with 13-party alliance of United
Front having succeeded in cutting the ground from under its
feet by exposing its propensity to enter into alliances with
Congress which it publicly kept denouncing as a Manuvadi (or
upper caste) political entity.

The United Front itself was handicapped by the lack of
coordination among its constituents, despite the strenuous
efforts put in by the two Communist parties, the CPI and the
CPI (Marxist), in seeking to organize last-minute patchups.
The Communists themselves have a not too strong electoral
base in Uttar Pradesh, a direct fallout of the inability to
convert the wide mass base they possess into electoral
gains.

Political pundits of the media had confidently predicted
that the BJP would have no difficulty in attaining the
requisite 213 seats in the 424-seat-strong Uttar Pradesh
Assembly. Indeed, as results started to trickle in, Sushma
Swaraj, the suave spokesperson of the BJP was telling
journalists that the United Front-run central government
would have to renege on its traditional stance vis-a-vis BJP
as a party of "right-wing Hindu fundamentalists."

Swaraj had to do a quick doubletake when it increasingly
became apparent that there was no way BJP was going to get
the magical 213 seats. Indeed, even with the secular vote
getting divided in these elections between the United Front
constituents and the Congress, BJP had received a slap in
the face from the Uttar Pradesh electorate who had earlier
allowed BJP to sweep as many as 236 Assembly seats during
the parliamentary elections earlier this year. BJP was also
not able to match the figure of 221 seats it had secured in
1991, falling short also of the 177 Assembly seats it had
garnered in 1993.

The secular vote got split this time but the fact that the
secular parties together won just over 70 percent of the
total came as a shock to the BJP which had counted on a big
win in Uttar Pradesh to try and have a second go at forming
a government at the center.

While the Uttar Pradesh electorate had rejected the BJP, the
United Front, despite coming a close second, was not able to
get the kind of voting pattern it had envisioned. And since
no single party/grouping managed to get the required number
of seats that would enable it to form the provincial
government, status quo was yet again in force with the
central government having little option to continuing with
the direct rule from Delhi - something the province had
experienced ever since the misrule of the Bahujan Party
Government came to an inglorious end a couple of years back.

The two Communist parties have appealed to all secular
forces that had been in the fray for the Uttar Pradesh
elections to ensure that the BJP did not get to indulge in
unseemly "horse trading" in "buying up" support in a bid to
form the provincial government. But would this mean that the
United Front would be willing to have some kind of
understanding with even the Congress? We shall have to wait
and see.